Irene Knows Best
by Feagalad
Summary: Janine sold some pretty sordid stories about our favourite Consulting Detective to the press. She clearly had a good time coming up with the naughtiest and most shocking details possible and recounting them in the most dramatic of fashions. With that in mind, one can only imagine what Irene Adler (worlds away and checking up on the news) had to say about them...


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**Disclaimer: **_Oh yeah...I TOTALLY own Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock, and the Beeb too. What? You say I don't? HA! That's what the nice gentlemen in the white coats said to me earlier as they were adjusting my straitjacket..._

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Even after she and the fabulous Mr. Holmes had parted ways in Venice, Venus Baker still kept up on the news from England. Her enemy and partner in crime may have scarpered off to deal with the last vestiges of the Web by himself (leaving her bored and bereft in Venice), but she was still interested in the arrogant detective, dammit! Why oh why had she ever taken that case to begin with? Oh. Right. She had wanted money and Moriarty had wanted to compromise Mycroft Holmes and so she had foolishly agreed to an alliance with that backstabbing, chick-flick watching psychopath. Worst mistake of her _life_!

Venus (known in better times as the one and only Irene Adler) now lived life as a ghost. Officially she was dead, legally she was deceased, literally she was ghost-like as she flitted from fabricated life to fabricated life. It hadn't been so bad before. Much as it had rankled her to be so dependant on Holmes (he _had _saved her, after all, and smuggled her off to a new identity and life in Moscow), before she had managed to build up a bit of a reputation and get some of her old life back. Sure it was no high-calibre dominatrix or skilled blackmailer...but the little business of cosmetic critiquing had given Irene the feeling of being in control again. Like she had finally wriggled out from under the proverbial thumb of being indebted to Sherlock Holmes of all people.

But then he had turned up in the papers she read every morning to keep up with the news from home, deader than a doornail and declared a fraud to boot! Irene knew better.

She fully expected Sherlock to text her one day, caustic and sharp as ever and ready for revenge on the Consulting Criminal who had driven him to fake his own death...looked forward to it, even. And she most definitely did _not _feel any kind of despair or regret whenever the months ticked on and the lack of even a whisper proved her theories wrong. Irene Adler did not grieve, not even the man that she both despised and adored with a kind of toxic passion.

And, of course, she was decidedly _not _both relieved and happy whenever he finally turned up on her doorstep, ill-fed and half-mad with his crazy, mad, mad, _MAD_ plan to take down the entire criminal web that Jim had headed up. Moriarty had had his fingers in many pies aside from just his own, personal hub of the organisation and if Sherlock Holmes, genius though he was, thought that he was going to single-handedly bring down the biggest organised crime network in the history of the world without her...he was an idiot. Besides, she still owed that bastard Jim for turning her over to the terrorists.

So they ran off together (after a bit of 'convincing' on her part) - partners in crime, twice as deadly and effective together as they were apart. She had lost none of her edge and he matched her wit for wit as they skilfully fought their way across Eurasia. It wasn't all glamour and ease, though. Irene could remember one night when they ended up squatting in a section of Istanbul sewer, waiting for their quarry. Still, with the thrill of the chase pumping through her veins and her brilliant detective at her side, how could she complain?

She had forgotten that she both loved and hated the man.

Their partnership ended in Venice where, after a particularly memorable evening involving bloodstained ball-gowns and executed first violinists (she's surprised it didn't make more of a splash in the newspapers, really), she pushed him a bit too hard. They had always played a complicated and delicate game - dancing around each other with words and flirtations, struggling for dominance with their intellects and wills. That night, drunk off of success and cleverness and the way he had played that stolen violin, she both exerted herself too strongly and waved a white flag. Both actions had the opposite effect from the one she had envisioned for, whether from actual disgust or from a sense of chivalry she hadn't even been aware he possessed, Holmes had cut her loose from his quest. He had rebuffed her every advance, ignored her every attempt at banter, and firmly informed her that he would be taking care of the Serbian lot on his own. Really she preferred it whenever he was being his self-absorbed and oblivious self.

Needless to say, their parting had not been on the best of terms. She had slapped him (He was being an idiot!) and flounced off to New Zealand while the Consulting Detective took off for Serbia alone. Not her best moment and she hadn't seen him since.

Well...that wasn't _entirely_ true. She had seen the pictures in every newspaper from the UK (which she _still _kept up with...just because she was in exile didn't mean she didn't care about her home) whenever the smug git had finally come out of hiding. Ooo how he swaggered and owned that ridiculous deerstalker the public had taken to heart. And much as she was still rankled by his parting words and attitude to her (she could _still _feel the imprint of his cheekbones in her hand), Irene couldn't help but lap up the broody, imposing, and utterly _sexy _pictures. So much more attractive than the slightly gawky and embarrassed photos from a few years ago. Maybe their year together had done him more good than she had thought...NO! She was _not _going to even go there. Sherlock Holmes was gone and she should just get over him. She was _Irene Adler_, for God's sake! She was beyond letting some foolish, infuriating, and utterly brilliant man mess up her life. No more!

So Venus Baker set about re-establishing herself. She couldn't return to Moscow. Perhaps it had been foolish to disappear by faking her own homicide (again) whenever she ran off with the detective, but he had always had the effect of driving her slightly mad. Look at what had happened the first time they matched wits!

The thought of his foiling of her plans and cracking of her pass-code still rankled her, even after all these years. She had planned it out so carefully, even going so far as to offer her services to Jim Moriarty in exchange for using him as a clever misdirect and safe-net, should anything go wrong. She had gone to the airport that night, flanked by two of Jim's favourite goons, and with her mask of make-up and perfect attire firmly set in place. She had envisioned this moment for so long. She would play both Holmes brothers against each other and entangle them in her net to the point that Mycroft was compromised beyond hope of redemption. Then she would get her money so she could retire from being a dominatrix for hire and be free to only entertain those she _wanted _to and Jim would get his opening to plant a mole in the Iceman's circles. Once she got her money she fully intended to then hand over the pass-code for her phone (once Jim remotely wiped it of all sensitive information, that is) and breeze out of the room just as Sherlock realised what it was.

**I Am SHER-LOCKED**

She would have _loved _to see the look on his face!

But instead she was exposed, humiliated, and driven into this confusing corner of self-castigation, hiding, and poisonous infatuation that she refused to admit even to herself. Here she was, eagerly scanning the newspapers of London and the UK for any news of Sherlock Holmes, as if she was a silly schoolgirl who had yet to learn her lesson.

**Shag-A-Lot Holmes**

Wait..._WHAT?!_

Irene blinked and read that headline again, just to be sure she had read it right.

Shag-A-Lot Holmes? No, it wasn't a sex-with-the-secretary political scandal involving the elder Holmes (the one she _really _didn't want to think about on a good day, let alone in a compromising position). The front page of this deliciously naughty report was festooned with shots of the world's only Consulting Detective, hat and all.

Irene devoured the rest of the article - drinking in the whole thing and giggling helplessly at the pathetic attempts at prose. Really? This was the big story of the evening? As if The blushing Virgin would _ever _think to try something like that with another living soul! Ha! Who wrote this dribble?! If he had used _that _position then he must have learned it from anatomy books! Heeheehee...and _that _move he learned from her on one of their reconaissence missions where they had masqueraded as a newly-wed couple. Well, at least he had picked up _something_ from her attempts to teach him the proper way to kiss a girl.

Oh merciful God in Heaven - this was the FUNNIEST thing she had read all year! Did those morons really think that someone could believe Holmes would even be able to come up with some of this stuff? He hadn't even been kissed until their night in Karachi, though she had to admit he was a delightfully fast learner.

Still...she had it on good authority that even after two years in _her _precense the daft genius was still as awkward and uninventive as ever when it came to sex. Who did this little hussy think she was and..._oh._

"Janine, you little bitch." Irene cooed happily. "I should have known I could count on you to get under his skin for me."


End file.
